Just leave any unit on the hex containing the abandoned equipment. You might have to shift-click to force your unit to enter the hex. I think your unit has to be in good condition. The appearance of the equipment doesn't change but if you leave your cursor over the hex it will now say destroyed. Note that if you control the map at the end of the turn, the game considers all abandoned enemy equipment destroyed for scoring purposes (not tested).

You can still choose to direct fire at a hex by using the direct fire button on the console. This can be done using any unit that can see the hex in question with the unit in it. I can't vouch for how accurate the fire will be, but I'm sure that I've cranked up unit kill stats in the past by 'killing' abandoned vehicles etc.

You can not destroy your own equipment in this game. As I advance into areas where abandoned enemy armor is I make it a point to blow them up. Gives you points in the end game and sometime I need all the points I can muster.

You can not destroy your own equipment in this game. As I advance into areas where abandoned enemy armor is I make it a point to blow them up. Gives you points in the end game and sometime I need all the points I can muster.

Somewhere, either the manual or in a post, I read that if you control the battlefield (majority of victory hexes) at the end of the game, then all abandoned enemy equipment is considered destroyed for points purposes. If this is true, then manually destroying each vehicle seems a poor investment of time and manpower. Do you know for sure that you get extra points for blowing abandoned armor manually?

Sorry, no ingame message telling about destroying "abandoned" state stuff!

One odditiy: If a crew bails its ordnance (vehicle or gun) not in line of sight of any enemy units, then the "abandoned" state vehicle or gun will be completely invisible to the opponent (human or AIP)! Only the crew can be spotted or unspotted normally. That means an abandoned state KV2 in example will stay invisible, despite its size. However, if you move a unit into a hex with abandoned enemy stuff that became invisible due to the mentioned circumstances, you can observe that the moving friendly unit icon will become offsetted from the center of the hex, slightly upward. Normally you know that there is something, either a yet unspotted enemy unit, or....an abandoned/destroyed unit that you just can´t see!

Btw, the info concerning destroying abandoned stuff can be found in the Update.pdf document, concerning V4 changes:

"A unit which has been abandoned, may now be spiked by an enemy unit that spends one turn in the hex with the abandoned unit and make an experience check. This will destroy the spiked unit. The unit and leader spiking will receive experience for the kill, although the leader will not receive a kill credit."

They don't always destroy it automatically. Sometimes if unit has no hand grenades or it's too small abandoned mortar may stay abandoned. (At least I've had some such cases.) Then it has to be destroyed by melee attack - which can fail and cause suppression (Tried to kick lonely mortar, missed and strained my leg --> I'm in panic!!).

If you force a crew to bail from a tank and that tank has a crew of 4 and at the end of the battle that tank is either destroyed, or you control the battlefield then you are credited with a killed AFV and four men casualties.

Now suppose that only 3 of the crew emerge from the tank and you kill that crew you are credite with 3 additional men casualties.

If you do not destroy the abandoned tank and also do not control the battlefield at the end of the game you will not be credited with destroying the tank i.e. not be awarded points to your score.

In tactical terms, it is always a good idea to destroy enemy abandoned vehicles or guns to protect yourself from having their crews going back to recrew them. It is also a tactical benefit to destroy those crews to increase your score and to prevent the crews from recrewing their abandoned vehicles.

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They struggled with a ferocity that was to be expected of brave men fighting with forlorn hope against an enemy who had the advantage of position......knowing that courage was the one thing that would save them.